Do sports stadiums generate crime on days without matches? A natural experiment on the delayed exploitation of criminal opportunities

Abstract

Crime pattern theory claims that busy places generate crime through immediate and delayed exploitation. In delayed exploitation, offenders notice criminal opportunities during opening hours but return to exploit them later. This study investigates delayed exploitation by testing whether soccer stadiums locally increase police recorded property crime on non-game days. A soccer stadium closure created a natural experiment. We estimate linear regression differencein-difference models to compare crime rates on non-game days around the stadium, before and after the closure. The closure reduced non-game day property crime beyond the citywide property crime drop. We conclude that criminogenic effects of busy places extend beyond their opening hours, confirming the delayed exploitation mechanism, and that crime prevention strategies should also target these places outside opening hours.

Mass Gathering Sport Events and the Spread of Viral Respiratory Infection: Japanese Professional Baseball and Influenza

“…Second, this paper advances the emerging literature on negative externalities of professional sport facilities, and games played in them. Examples include studies found that the presence of sport franchises and the hosting of games is associated with increases in crime (Mares & Blackburn, 2019; Montolio & Planells-Struse, 2018; Pyun, 2019; Pyun & Hall, 2019; Vandeviver et al, 2019), congestion (Humphreys & Pyun, 2018; Propheter, 2020), and air pollution (Locke, 2018). Humphreys and Ruseski (2019) found that sports facility construction has adverse impacts on newborns through environmental damage.…”

Simple indicators of crime and police: How big data can be used to reveal temporal patterns

“…This intersection of the routine activities of potential offenders and victims results in elevated levels of crime risk, and these tend to cluster in space and time (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1995;Felson, 2006;van Sleeuwen et al, 2021a). While a considerable body of research has already examined these spatiotemporal clusters of crime (Andresen et al, 2017;Ariel et al, 2019;Braga et al, 2019;Vandeviver et al, 2019;Weisburd et al, 2017), only a few studies have examined temporal aspects of crime and police (e.g., Ratcliffe, 2002).…”

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble: Assault in Space and Time

“…Billings and Depken (2012) conducted a similar study in which they also controlled for distance to a stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, and found an increase in property crimes up to a mile away and a multipurpose arena that experienced a significant increase in violent crimes up to two miles away when compared to days when the facilities were not used. Other, similar nonparametric, econometric, and Bayesian approaches to the study of mass gatherings and crime have been conducted at this more granular level at stadia across the UK (see Kurland, Johnson, & Tilley, 2014; Kurland et al, 2014, 2018; Marie, 2016; Ristea, Kurland, et al, 2018), the United States (see Klick & MacDonald, 2020; Kurland & Piza, 2018; Menaker et al, 2019; Ristea et al, 2020), Canada (see Ristea et al, 2018), Belgium (Vandeviver et al, 2019), and Spain (Montolio & Planells-Struse, 2015, 2019) with similar findings.…”